Birdwatching (April Theme) {Process Post}

Hello and happy Sunday! Today, let's me share my thought process on my Birdwatching theme! Or more specifically, my thoughts on how I work on vision and execution.

I wanted to do a bird based theme for April this month with the main reason of making a bird theme bookmark haha. After finishing the bookmark, I went and proceed with the postcard and sticker sheet.

When I first draw the postcard, I imagined the theme to be more photorealistic. I wanted to draw real bird species with the character sitting on a tree trunk. I mulled over if I should make the theme a "swallow - only" theme or a universal "bird" theme. I ended up choosing a universal bird theme because it will be more interesting for the sticker sheet and I want the character to have a more adventurous feel to it.

I spend a lot of time researching bird species that looks distinctive next to each other but still have a similar color scheme to the swallow. The species of birds in this postcard presented was: swallow, sparrow, scrub-jay, hawk, and the now deleted (pheasant)

After envisioning the character surrounded by a plethora of leaves and birds in my head, I went and start drawing the postcard design. The lineart went well, but the struggle started with coloring. My art style is not good with photorealistic design. I have a lot of references of artists who does photorealism with anime style characters but I cannot execute that drawing style well.

References I was using

A lot of my references I was using have a lot of texturing work which I am not good with because I mostly just draw manually, but my ambition kept me going for days! I hope to be as good as the artists I follow but after struggling, I felt defeated. I thought to myself: "I feel like I am overcomplicating things for a postcard design. A postcard is very small and it should have some focused elements. What do you want to focus on? Do you want to focus on the character or the birds?"

I want to focused on the character! So I scrubbed my background, simplified it into shapes and made it about the Birdwatching character and the swallow interacting. I removed the pheasant because, I'm sorry but that bird is so strange looking haha.

So the postcard design is a cumulation of my ambition, fail execution but managing to finish it at a satisfying place.

I know background art is not my specialty (and I hate drawing background), but I don't shy from trying it with the thought that I will slowly get better. I won't give up.

I hope you like this birdwatching theme writeup and I hope you look forward to the special bookmark this month! ^ U^

I normally try to clean up my PSD files or just not post really terrible files but this time I want to attach my chaotic photoshop file for this work (sketches, layers everything).

Melan - out to enjoy her Sunday.